Watch: Handgun-mounted drone as terrifying as it sounds

So there’s a video doing the rounds on YouTube of a homemade drone, with a handgun sitting atop, firing from the sky. It’s terrifying.

Every time the pistol fires, the drone shifts backwards with the force, but manages to compensate and regain its position. The result is, effectively, an automatic flying weapon. A new dawn for commercial drones.

It’s not easy to establish the veracity of the video, but it looks quite real. The person who uploaded it, Hogwit, has previously put up other videos of drone footage.

Drone legislation worldwide is battling to catch up with a technology that has transferred from military use to widespread consumer acceptance in a remarkably short space of time.

Presumably, with videos like this cropping up, that legislation will be brought through considerably quicker.

The comments below the video are divided down a few lines. Some people think the uploader will soon get arrested for creating this weapon. Others fret that things like this will signal the end of commercial drones.

Redswipe, for example, worried that “this will now be used as evidence to bring crazy anti-drone laws in, ruining the fun for everyone”.

But others have advice on how to improve this killing machine. steelCOYOTE thinks the creator should “add a pusher propeller to it to help with the recoil”.

Drones as weapons, nothing new

It’s probably best to clarify here that drones firing weapons or gaining a military advantage are hardly new, watching the news will show you that.

The US military in particular is ahead of the field with regards drone technology. For example, LOCUST drones are being developed that would allow for those on the receiving end of a strike to be simply overwhelmed.

Elsewhere, by using the cicada insect as its template, US military scientists have created a palm-size recon drone of the same name that they say will be so small and numerous that an enemy simply couldn’t stop them.

Recently, The Guardian obtained documents that revealed an agreement between NASA and Verizon to utilise cell towers for the surveillance and control of low-altitude commercial and civilian unmanned aerial systems, or drones, within four years.

As a response to this new age of military expertise, Russia may be creating a ‘Microwave Gun’, which can deactivate drones, missiles and all unmanned airborne vehicles.

But as for consumer-level creations, this handgun-mounted drone is quite different.